Give that Goose a Gander

or...why I don't trust the Left or the media. So, British soldiers are kidnapped by a "democratic nation" (as sayeth Sy Hersh) and yet, this Democratic Nation called Iran ignores the Geneva Convention(s) and we hear...oh... not a peep of outrage. Not a whimper. N.O.T.H.I.N.G.

So, what I basically get is this: America bad. Always. No matter what. Everyone else gets a PASS. Freakin' hypocrites. Liars. Panderers. Sycophants of tyrants & dictators and all things un-freedom-like.

Tune in ...turn on...?

Which is creepier, the NBC Dateline show To Catch a Predator or the people that keep watching the creeps doing creepy things-- week after week, re-runs too.

Now, THIS isn't Convenient

Uh oh...this could cause some believers to question the effects of taxing and controlling all the regular folk (you know, most of us who can't afford "carbon credits") ...nah! We just need to figure out a way to take down that sun of ours....

Excerpted from National Geographic article:

Simultaneous warming on Earth and Mars suggests that our planet's recent climate changes have a natural—and not a human-induced—cause, according to one scientist's controversial theory.

Earth is currently experiencing rapid warming, which the vast majority of climate scientists says is due to humans pumping huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Mars, too, appears to be enjoying more mild and balmy temperatures.

In 2005 data from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and Odyssey missions revealed that the carbon dioxide "ice caps" near Mars's south pole had been diminishing for three summers in a row.

Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of the St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, says the Mars data is evidence that the current global warming on Earth is being caused by changes in the sun.

"The long-term increase in solar irradiance is heating both Earth and Mars," he said.

Abdussamatov believes that changes in the sun's heat output can account for almost all the climate changes we see on both planets.

Mars and Earth, for instance, have experienced periodic ice ages throughout their histories.

"Man-made greenhouse warming has made a small contribution to the warming seen on Earth in recent years, but it cannot compete with the increase in solar irradiance," Abdussamatov said.

U.N. TURNS ITS BACK ON WOMEN... SO WHAT ELSE ISN'T NEW?

This is why the UN is irrelevant and USELESS except for handing out blankets, food and vaccines:

The United States criticized the United Nations for refusing to list a panel it organized Tuesday entitled “State-Sanctioned Mass Rape in Burma and Sudan” on a U.N. Web site.

The U.S. Mission to the United Nations arranged to hold the panel on the sidelines of the annual two-week meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women which this year is focusing on discrimination and violence against women. It will include presentations about rape and sexual violence in both countries.

But the U.N.’s Meeting Services branch objected to the title, which was published in the U.N.’s daily journal last Thursday, because it “would be perceived as offensive to named member states,” according to a letter to the U.S. Mission obtained by the Associated Press.

How Inconvenient

Again, if it's dire, why aren't they giving the Inconvenient Truth away???? Why isn't it aired on broadcast TV or cable? It's the typical HolloWood way: self-congratulating, greedy, self-righteous. Sure, climate is changing. Always has. Let's be concerned about this:

The case of the Vanishing Bees

The article doesn't point to the REASON this is of concern (though the article points to profit/loss): Honey bees account for more than 1/3 of our food AND contribute to the other 2/3. So, it's a big big deal. Poland and Spain are also suffering from disappearing bees.

Systemic pesticides? Pollution? Yeah, this is something to take action on. Global Warming? It's just a way for the elite to get richer, grab more power, take away more freedom and pat themselves on the back for it.

Eulogy for Ivins

When I talk about you, shall I talk about me?

WE SUPPORT OUR TROOPS! WE SPIT ON YOU!

yeah. figured it wouldn't be long before this happened.

oh, and nice to flame the capitol building w/graffiti.

just. proves. my. post. below. anti-american. complete crap.
and yet, the young soldier coulda/woulda/shoulda done much more:

There were a few tense moments, however, including an encounter involving Joshua Sparling, 25, who was on crutches and who said he was a corporal with the 82nd Airborne Division and lost his right leg below the knee in Ramadi, Iraq. Mr. Sparling spoke at a smaller rally held earlier in the day at the United States Navy Memorial, and voiced his support for the administration’s policies in Iraq.

Later, as antiwar protesters passed where he and his group were standing, words were exchanged and one of the antiwar protestors spit at the ground near Mr. Sparling; he spit back.

THE BIG YAWN or MY BELLY BUTTON HAS LINT

Bringin’ you the news THEY want you to know...

Last week, tens of thousands marched in protest of the Roe vs Wade decision. This event barely made a blimp on our nation’s newspapers and network and cable news shows.

But an anti-American, anti-democracy, anti-humanitarian-we’re-against-any-American-show -of-strength-unless-it’s-in-the-form-of-“art”- and-I-get-paid-for-it-so-you-better-not-infringe –on-my-copyright rally (let’s face it, this IS what it is) gets front and center.

BRING ‘EM HOME. What a crock. Seriously. These people care N-O-T-H-I-N-G about our military/ troops. They’ve just shifted tactics. 30 years ago, they were blaming the troops and the gov’t, now they’ve guised their tactics in “we support our troops, not the war” while they stand outside Walter Reed telling them they're dying/fightin' for nothing, they're criminals for fighting this "illegal" war. Wow, now that’s support!

OUT OF IRAQ!! Into Darfur!! Oh, not US, I meant an International Farce to stand by and do nothing while women, men and children are being slaughtered.

BROWN PEOPLE DON’T MATTER! Fend for yourself! Say the “liberals” of our day. "We shouldn't get involved in civil wars." hmmm. And yet, there's so much hand-wringing over Rwanda. Is it a numbers game or a PR one? Maybe we should wait till a celebrity tells us to ACT and the murders reach a benchmark. What's a good number before we start thinking we should intervene? Is it the number of people killed in ethnic cleansing in Kosovo , Bosnia, Rwanda or Darfur? What's the magic number before we think people are important?

BLACK HEARTS: FONDA, PENN, SARANDON, ROBBINS, MEDEA
The usual suspects say and do the usual things. They haven’t grown up, grown wiser or grown a backbone. They are so big and bad to condemn the US and snoop through our computers to see if we have a film or music that shouldn’t “be there”. But, try and shift the paradigm of a sick region out of the f’ing middle ages where women are enslaved and gays are killed and entertainment is banned and, well, you’ve gone too far!

BIRDS OF PREY: HAWK, ACCIPITER, BUTEO, EAGLE, FALCON-- I DIG 'EM ALL
Oh, and can I speak to the war if I have several immediate family members who’ve VOLUNTARILY served in the Military and are serving now? Or do I need to join or make a sacrifice in some way even if I’ve exceeded the age requirement? Whose permission do I seek before I may speak? Can I speak to the crime in my neighborhood and city and what my police force should do to combat, or do I need to be a Cop to have a voice?

Does it ever get old, tiring, draining to be so freakin' negative all the time?

And while I'm on it: with all the Iraqis getting blown to smithereens by murderous thugs on both sides, wonder what they think of our il-liberal friends asking our troops to leave 'em to fend for themselves? Compassion? Phooey. The message: We care more about our asses than the fact that you're getting murdered by the dozens every day.

Amen...

In the immediate aftermath of Katrina, journalists sought someone to blame. They, predictably, found President George Bush was the best scapegoat. But in lashing out, yet again, at their favorite source of all discontent, they missed a bigger target. If anyone “out there” is to be blamed, it is the large, remote, centralized federal government which has become a surrogate father to so many millions of Americans.

Over the decades, we have ceded power, authority and responsibility to the federal government far beyond anything envisioned or desired by our founders. As a result, instead relying on our own intelligence, resources and ability to work with others in our communities to solve problems, we have turned to Washington D.C..

This is not a matter of ‘blaming the victim’, because the victim has become so immersed in this twisted view of human life that he cannot see what has happened. The federal government’s dehumanizing effect has torn up neighborhoods, torn apart families and turned brave, capable people into compliant recipients of redistributed wealth.

The problem is that the morsels of that wealth never provide enough to do anything other than keep folks in a perpetual state of dependence upon the State. Even if those morsels became chunks big enough to choke a horse, the dependency would remain. The federal government has become not only the safety net, it is everything from the crib blanket to the casket lining.

The danger of centralized government control is not that it robs a few dollars from rich people and gives them to the poor. It’s not even that such a bureaucratic behemoth spawns the waste of billions of dollars. After all, it’s just money.

No, the threat of this system is that it strips a man of what makes him a man, and turns him away from his inner resources, or the inclination to partner with neighbors to solve problems. It humiliates him, blinds him and ultimately cripples him.

Of course, when a government-built levee bursts, and a government-subsidized house is immersed, the natural, reasonable reaction of the displaced person is to turn to the government; both to blame for the disaster and to petition for relief. Many of the homes that were destroyed belonged to middle- and upper-class citizens as well, and yet still somehow even some of those people turned toward Washington to vent anger and cry out for restoration.

Sadly, the story that rarely gets told are the daily acts of bravery, fortitude and cooperation in dozens of communities where people — often through the agency of local churches — have pulled together in reliance upon each other and in a shared dependence upon superintending grace. Work crews that report to no one in Washington have poured into the region to cart off debris and help lay the foundations for a better future. Against all odds, many of the washed-out residents have worked long hours, endured separation from family and almost-overwhelming hardship in order to rebuild what the waters ravaged. These people are beyond number, and below the media radar.

Journalists, by habit, prefer stories they can receive from the tip of a spoon held by an “expert” or official. They, too, have turned to big government and have become dependent upon her for their sustenance. What most Americans know of the situation in the hurricane zone is only what TV or other news sources tell them. Most of that information comes from “authorities” in the government. The reporters have told us that the real story is all about the government’s response. They have largely ignored the responsible activities of thousands of unseen hands restoring towns, parks, homes and lives.

Success stories are buried. Tragedy is blared from the housetops. It’s a self-reinforcing cycle that further deepens dependence upon the government, and further strips the dignity of the person.

The victims of Katrina are not really the victims of Katrina herself. The tragedy began long before the hurricane hit.

Natural disasters have always happened and always will. While, mercifully, they don’t occur every day in every place, they are common enough that we ought to have an expectation that bad things can and will happen. We need to cultivate the inner resources in ourselves, our children and our neighborhoods to cope with the inevitable. When we cede that power and responsibility to the federal government, we surrender a part of what makes us human and leave ourselves more vulnerable to the tempest.

Whether you believe in God or not, you have surely experienced how the human soul sings when we gather in chorus to accomplish a great purpose in the midst of tragedy. It’s as if we were designed to work together with our family, friends and neighbors. There is a blessing in it that exceeds the penalty of the curse.

When my own community was hit by flooding some years ago, people stepped off their porches, shouldered sandbags, delivered meals, took in the homeless, wielded shovels against the muck, and generally helped each other in the task of restoration. As awful as that flood was, I will always remember it fondly, not for the harm it did to us and to our property, but for the good it did in us and in our community.

Our state-run schools and spoon-fed media have conditioned us to look to government. They’ve also trained us to take offense at any expression of love that doesn’t result in government intervention and redistribution of taxpayer dollars. ‘Compassion’ has been redefined as ‘entitlement’ and thus stripped of its power and utility.

The devastating impact of this mindset is the apparent withering of the individual spirit and of community cooperation which have been the hallmarks of this great nation.

But all is not yet lost, and perhaps not so much is lost as we have been led to believe.

Since what we know about America flows mostly from the media, we can be certain that most of what we know is just plain wrong, or at least atypical. My old journalism professor used to say, ‘News is coups, earthquakes and three-legged chickens.’

In other words, Walter Cronkite was exactly wrong to say ‘That’s the way it is.’ Journalists don’t report the truth about life. They are carnival barkers selling the unusual, the atypical, the freaks. And we continue to reward them for doing so.

The actual truth about life in our great Republic is quite different from the daily portrayals in the media.

Everywhere in this God-blessed America covert radicals roam, committing seemingly-random acts of kindness — unmonitored, untallied, uncontrolled, unshackled from the federal government. It is, in effect, a shadow government that we have set up for ourselves to promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty.

This decentralized movement of men and women accomplishes most of the great work of charity, compassion and community building. Their individual efforts are a drop in the bucket compared to the ocean of government largess, but in the aggregate and ultimate their service far exceeds anything that government can deliver.

In fact, the vast majority of Americans behave as if the federal government did not exist in their day-to-day lives. This underground movement is entirely healthy and necessary for the maintenance of our Republic and for our pursuit of happiness.

We don’t have time to blame anyone for our misfortunes. We’re too busy working to overcome them. We don’t have faith in some distant bureaucrat, rather we turn to the resources that God has placed near at hand. We lean on our brothers. Many of us call on our Father in our time of need, and He sends our neighbors who love us more than we love ourselves. Later, we will turn to our helpers when they need us and repay the debt, only to learn that no debt existed because acts of compassion shower blessings on giver and receiver alike.

We find these local (and spiritual) solutions not only adequate, but invigorating and inspiring because it is only when we are pressed hard by life that we discover there is more life in us, among us and beyond us than we had imagined in carefree hours.

Scott Ott, editor

You hear that?

It's the sound of silence regarding the recent attacks by the French military (an oxymoron) on rebels in the quiet, quaint little village of Ouadda in Central African Republic. How do we really know only "rebels" were killed?

Could the rebels be "freedom-fighters"?

An occupation?

France recently added 100 troops to its 200 soldiers in Central African Republic to aid the government in countering the rebellion and to help secure borders with Chad and Sudan, both wracked by internal conflict.

I don't recall the French passing this action by the UN Security Council because, after all, Central African Republic is a sovereign country.

Not a big deal to me really, just mocking the hypocrisy. You see France can kick around the small guys, but they're not stepping up in Lebanon, Afghanistan (yeah I know they're "there" but they're not really engaged in the hot zone) or Sudan where they could really use some firepower to take down the thugs that are raping, killing and displacing hundreds of thousands of folks just trying to live.

Reno Gambles

Feeling like she's been out of the limelight for too long, Civil Rights violator and US Constitution trampler, Janet Reno, has decided to take on the US Government. Having squashed, murdered and intimidated families in Idaho, religious groups in Texas and small children (a particular Cuban refugee comes to mind) in Florida, Reno has set her sights on non-Americans--giving them rights she never gave the folks in Idaho, Texas and Florida -- a fair hearing/trial.

Suddenly, courageously, Ms Reno has decided that the rights of NON-AMERICANS/alleged terrorists are supreme. There's a few Americans (mothers, children, fathers) lying in graves that may take issue with her supposed new-found concern for the Constitution.

Let's hope the gov't doesn't come out like the others who have been in Reno's crosshairs.

What It Is Ain't Exactly Clear....

The media has an interesting double standard, which in fact, points out their bias and probably underlying racism or at the very least elitism.

When news items relating to men on planes "acting strangely", removed and questioned, they have no problem stating the origin or ethnicity of the men involved --Middle Eastern-- which is code for Arab.

But when a black or Hispanic (not Asian) is possibly involved in an alleged incident or crime, the media go out of their way to avoid ANY reference to race or ethnicity. When a few houses were broken into in a nearby neighborhood, the Evening News told us everything about the man (5'7, brown hair) but the detail that would be helpful--are we looking for a brown, black or Asian looking person? He obviously wasn't a Caucasoid: I've noticed they don't have an issue pointing out the race of white perpetrators.

It seems to me that the News folks don't see other races as people, equal --they deny the existence of race by not looking at it-- "we must not point out their racial makeup" because in doing so, we are being racist. But by not, aren't they in fact being what they think they are not--pretending to not see the obvious and going out of the way to avoid it?

Messed up.

Liberated?

BOO!

Update: Women are Just Meat...and That's the Problem...

The leader of 2000 rapes in Sydney’s southwest, Bilal Skaf, a Muslim, was initially sentenced to 55 years’ jail, but later had the sentence reduced on appeal.

In the religious address on adultery to about 500 worshippers in Sydney last month, Sheik Hilali said:

“If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats or the uncovered meat?”

“The uncovered meat is the problem.”

The sheik then said:

“If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred.”

He said women were “weapons” used by “Satan” to control men.

“It is said in the state of zina (adultery), the responsibility falls 90 per cent of the time on the woman. Why? Because she possesses the weapon of enticement (igraa).”

Liberated Women?

My 2 year old neice was at Disneyland/Epcot Center a few months ago and encountered a veiled woman. How my neice knew it was a woman, I do not know. But she was intrigued and kept staring at her, gigling. Finally she said "she's hiding" as though my neice was "in" on the game. I agree, any woman who veils in this manner IS hiding. PERIOD. They are not free to be human, but are only specters of the Islamic male ego and a reflection of his weakness.

RIP: Oriana Fallaci

One of my favorites has passed. Freedom fighter. Rebel. Truth-seeker. Truth-sayer. Non-believer. Believer. Passionate. Passionate. Passionate.

"People like me who have passion are derided: 'Ha ha ha! She's hysterical!' 'She's very passionate!' Listen how the Americans speak about me: 'A very passionate Italian.'"

"There are moments in Life when keeping silent becomes a fault, and speaking an obligation. A civic duty, a moral challenge, a categorical imperative from which we cannot escape."

She could not be silenced. Will not be silent. Even in death.

Update: In memorium. A friend remembers.

That's RICH, I've gotta tell ya...

Truly. Madly. Despicable.

"Yesterday, Slate posted this piece criticizing Frank Rich's New York Times column about the 9/11 photo shown here. The picture was taken by Magnum photographer Thomas Hoepker on the afternoon of 9/11. Calling the image "shocking," Rich suggested that the five New Yorkers were "relaxing" and were already "mov[ing] on" from the attacks..."

Read the letter from one of the individuals actually IN the image: http://www.slate.com/id/2149578/

Update: Hitchens takes down Rich in another article: http://www.slate.com/id/2149377/?nav=tap3

Path to Idiocy?

I'm frightened. Really I am. The Dem leaders are railing against the as-yet-to-be-aired Path to 9-11 film that few have seen (at this writing, it's still in editing) and asking for it to be removed. They've started a hostile counter campaign to the film's promotion and have created fake websites to capture eyes interested in the film and to exert their denouncement of Path to 9-11 on the inquisitive visitor. (case in point: www.pathto911.com)

It's o.k. to complain. That's not what I take issue with. It's that if the Dems are complaining about something that someone else told them is bad, what does that say about their governing? Someone says "hey, this makes you look bad, I've 'heard' it's inaccurate, etc" and they go off half-cocked w/o pausing to review, research and investigate the facts FIRST...

This does not bode well for the loyal opposition. It's actually quite frightening--it also explains a lot of their Iraq complaints since 2003--bascially that they were duped and/or didn't READ/INVESTIGATE pre-war assessments, rather they went forward with what someone else told them and that was good enough for them, for the country.

So basically, they're completely stupid because someone pulled the wool over their eyes (Bushco) or they're completely incompetant because they don't bother to research the facts for themselves.

Geez. Shouldn't we get more out of our leaders than this? Shouldn't they be serving the public in a much more meaningful way?

What's more, they seem to think we're not grown up enough to discern the "truth" and now want to censor...in the name of what? 9-11 reset the clock for me and many others-- we grew up and certainly I started paying much more attention. We've already bared witness to the horrible events of 9-11, I think we can handle a little made-up drama.

Doesn't this frighten you? It should.


POSTSCRIPT: If the Dems or Repubs for that matter don't like the docudrama they can go out and spend money and creative resources and make their own.

POSTSCRIPT 2: Comparisons to the Reagan docudrama brouhaha don't hold water --that was a drama about people, the Reagans. The Path to 9-11 is about events leading up to the attack based on the 9-11 Commission Report--it's not about Clinton, it's not about Albright, it's not about Bush --though I suspect that there'd be not a whimper if it was...

"What is objectionable, what is dangerous, about extremists is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents."
- Robert Francis Kennedy

STAR 69 Selected for Los Angeles International Short Film Festival

STAR 69

When a man receives a disturbing call from a woman in trouble, his attempts to reconnect lead to a surreal conversation with someone else entirely, the tragic figure at the heart of the trouble.

Director / Producer / Writer: Victor Bornia

Film will premiere Saturday, September 9, 2006 at 8:00p.m. See you there!

CHECK OUT THE FILM HERE

ORDER TIX HERE